Read Online Buried In Buttercream by G. A. McKevett - Free Book Online

here.”
    Madeline seemed vastly relieved, though eager to go, as she had another call coming through. She agreed to call once she had spoken to the club and gotten the earliest date possible.
    They said good-bye. And as Savannah clicked off her phone and listened to the youngest set of Vidalia’s twins wailing in the living room, she thought, Whatever that date is, it won’t be soon enough!
    She entered the room just in time to see Peter hurl his bottle across the room and take out one of her African violets that had been sitting on a windowsill, minding its own business. Dirt flew everywhere, but as luck would have it, most of it landed on the seat of her favorite chair.
    “Dadgummit, Peter!” Vidalia shouted from her position on the sofa, where she was stretched out, a tabloid magazine in one hand, a giant glass of sweet tea in the other. “If you keep throwing that bottle around like that, I’m gonna take it away from you!”
    Marietta tore her eyes away from the R-rated movie on TV long enough to weigh in on the matter. “I always said, ‘When they’re old enough to run around with the nipple clenched between their teeth, the bottle swingin’ back and forth, they’re too big for it.’”
    Savannah walked over to her chair to survey the damage. The violet was a goner. No doubt about that.
    Fortunately, she’d been too busy to water it for several days, so the dirt on the chair wasn’t too soggy.
    For a moment she considered telling her sister to get up off her lazy hind end and clean up her kid’s mess. But then she considered how little talent Vidalia had for housework. Vi’s idea of cleaning would be wetting a handful of paper towels and grinding the dirt so deeply into the fabric that it would never come out.
    As she walked into the kitchen to get a whisk broom and dustpan, Vidalia said, “Sorry about your plant, but it’s sorta your own fault that Peter’s upset.”
    Savannah stopped and turned back toward her sister, who had her nose back in her paper. “Oh? Do tell.”
    “He’s bummed out ’cause he didn’t get to see Mickey Mouse today.”
    “Mickey ... what?”
    “We’d promised the kids we’d take them to Disneyland today, once your wedding was over and done with. That’s what he’s bawlin’ about.”
    As though to prove his mother’s point, Peter toddled over to Savannah and gave her shin a hearty kick with his miniature sneaker. Not being that surefooted yet, he wobbled, then fell over, and started to cry again when he hit the carpet.
    Savannah reached down and picked him up. When he tried to kick at her again, babbling something like, “Mick ... ouse ... wanna go,” she gave him a kiss on the forehead.
    “I’m sorry, puddin’ cat, but you’ll still get to see Mickey Mouse. Aunt Savannah promises. She also promises that if you kick her again, she’ll swat your bee-hind for you. You don’t get to kick people every time you want to.
    “Obviously,” she muttered under her breath as she set him on the floor, “or your momma’d have my footprint on her backside right now.”
    Savannah left the still-squalling, mouse-deprived youngster and walked into the kitchen, where she found her brother Waycross sitting at her table. He was staring, goo-goo eyed, at the pretty blonde across the table from him.
    “Tammy!” she said as she crossed the room to greet her friend. “I’m so glad to see you, sugar.”
    The young woman rose from the table and met her halfway. They hugged each other tightly for a long time. When they finally broke the embrace, Tammy kissed Savannah’s cheek.
    “I’m glad to see you, too, Savannah,” she told her with downcast eyes and a look of sadness tinged with guilt on her lovely face.
    Savannah’s heart ached to see this same expression, day after day, week after week ... for three months now. When was it going to end? When would they be like they were before? Ever?
    Surely their friendship wouldn’t turn out to be something else that bastard had